To die your while life. Despite the morbidity, I can't think of a better definition of the writing life. There's something about writing that demands a leave-taking, an abandonment of the world, paradoxically, in order to see it clearly. This retreat has to be accomplished without severing the vital connection to the world, and to…
The game starts again from the beginning. The end is always another beginning.This nightmare of eternity in time, this is our fate. -Margarita Karapanou (Rien ne va plus) It's strange to think that this series of posts has been going on now for seven weeks. There's a small part of me that wants to resist counting…
Tonight the Great Pumpkin will rise out of the pumpkin patch. He flies through the air and brings toys to all the children of the world. -Charles Schulz (It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown) Every year when pumpkins begin appearing at the markets, I go a little crazy--a good kind of crazy. I can't really…
Ο βρεγμένος τη βροχή δε φοβάται. (The one who is wet is not afraid of the rain). -Greek proverb For me, Thursday is a day of liberation. Not only have I fulfilled my teaching responsibilities for the week, but I'm also free from having to think about waking up at some ungodly hour like 6:19…
While she stands alone among the dripping vines she cannot make a connection that she knows is there. There is a blankness in her thoughts, a density that feels like muddle also, until she realizes: the Annunciation was painted after rain. Its distant landscape, glimpsed through arches, has the temporary look that she is seeing…
“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”- J.R.R. TolkienEver since I was a little girl, I've had a special place in my heart for Thanksgiving. Each year I would get up ridiculously early to watch the Macy's Day Parade, check to see if…
"But when we sit together close, we melt into each other with phrases. We are edged with mist. We make an unsubstantial territory."-Virginia Woolf (The Waves)My life is generally all about words these days--finalizing the conference paper, grading assignments and responding to this batch of revised papers. But even though I'm still racing to get…
To sing this small but remarkable thing, one had absolutely--yes, absolutely--to have a full, genuine inspiration, a genuine passion or its full poetic assimilation. Otherwise the romance would not only fail altogether, but might even appear outrageous and all but something shameless: it would be impossible to show such intensity of passionate feeling without provoking…
Dining with Dostoevsky 